Air Transport

Australian start-up Strategic Airlines has bought Australian charter carrier OzJet, which went into voluntary administration in May.

Strategic CEO, David Blake, says "we entered into a deed for assessment from the administrators and it was voted on last Wednesday [24 June] and executed last Friday."

He says Strategic bought OzJet from the administrators because "it has one or two interesting routes in Western Australia [such as] Perth-Derby, which is a regular passenger transport route, that is doing quite well and is a protected route under the name OzJet."

The other reason it bought OzJet was because of its air operators certificate, confirms Blake, adding that it plans to operate Airbus A320s under the OzJet AOC starting around September.

Blake is familiar with OzJet because prior to joining OzJet he was OzJet's chief operating officer.

He says just before it went into voluntary administration in May, OzJet downsized to about 50 employees.

Strategic plans to retain 20-25 OzJet employees including most of the cabin staff, he adds.

OzJet was operating four Boeing 737-200s but these are excluded from the airline purchase, confirms Blake.

Strategic is also applying for Australian AOC in its own right and hopes to get it in September or October and use it for its Airbus A330, says Blake.

The carrier is leasing the A330 from Swiss International Air Lines and it is currently being worked on at Lufthansa Technik in the Philippines and is due to arrive in Australia on 6 July, he adds.

It is also in the market to lease an A320 for Australia because it has decided that the two A320s it has already secured on lease are to be stationed in France, says Blake.

The two A320s have French registration F-GSTR and F-GSTS while the A330 has Australian registration VH-SSA, he adds.

Strategic is also setting up in Europe because "the failures in Europe have left a bit of a hole," he says, referring to the collapse of airlines such as XL Airways.